Dimotiki, Katharevousa, Saracatsan. Katharevousa is an archaic literary dialect, Dimotiki is the spoken literary and now official dialect. The Saracatsan are nomadic shepherds of northern Greece. The Greek of Italy and that of Corsica are probably distinct languages (1992 R. Zamponi). In Cyprus, the dialect is reportedly more similar to Classical Greek [grc] in some vocabulary and grammar than that spoken in Greece, and to have Latin [lat] and Turkish [tur] loanwords. Lexical similarity: 84%–93% with Greek [ell] in Cyprus.

Typology

SVO.

Language Use

5,136,000 also use English [eng]. 856,000 also use French [fra]. 963,000 also use Standard German [deu].

Salento dialect is used widely and there may be a few child speakers but the shift to South Italian [ita] has proceeded rapidly and active speakers tend to be 50 and older. The Calabrian dialect is only used actively in Gaddhiciano village but the youngest speakers are over 30 years old (Salminen 2007). Mostly older adults.